La prisoner freed after 41 years of solitary

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A 71-year-old Louisiana prisoner who spent 41 years in solitary confinement and is now dying of cancer has been released from prison.

Late Tuesday, U.S. District Chief Judge Brian Jackson in Baton Rouge denied the state’s motion seeking to block his earlier order overturning Herman Wallace’s 1974 murder conviction in the death of Angola guard Brent Miller.

Jackson had also ordered a new trial, saying women were unconstitutionally excluded from the grand jury that indicted the man in the guard’s death. And, he ordered the man immediately released.

Wallace’s attorneys said he left a correctional center in St. Gabriel, by ambulance, at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. He was expected to seek treatment at LSU Interim Hospital in New Orleans for advanced terminal liver cancer.